Joanne Williams
Editor

(Joanne Williams/TCJ – The score didn’t matter. It was all about the cheering and support of the unified basketball players)

 

Sure, March college basketball madness is one thing, but, then there is Unified Basketball in Charlotte. Talk about raising the roof on the Dome and really cheering on your favorite players.

Students from the high school and the middle school were there on March 26 to cheer on athletes, playing in teams featuring peer Unified partners from the schools.

Students filled the gymnasium, sporting colors and signs to cheer on the green, red, orange, blue, pink and purple teams. There were also colorful starfish, shark and unicorn inflatables to assist as well as the Jazz Band, teachers, staff and parents.

The score at the end of about an hour’s play (including a variety of skills games in between) did not matter. The cheering did, and it never stopped until the crowd was dismissed.

By the way, the blue team won for cheering the loudest. 

Senior Sarah Bauer of the pink team said, “I am here to support the community, to be supportive. It really is nice.”

Tenth grader and trumpet player Alivia King was also cheering on the band as well as her green team members, “It’s what we’re representing,” the support, she said.

Student teacher Michael Curry wore a purple shirt to support his purple team players. “I like this small town energy,” he said. Curry studies at Michigan State University.

Special Education teacher Tami Nixon supervises the event. She was all smiles.

This was the fourth basketball game, she said. Each year she tries to add something new. It was in the second year that the middle school became involved.

“It’s definitely grown,” she said. Her Unified team of students number 30, and they gain more than athletic skills in this endeavor.

“True friendships develop,” Nixon said. She has seen that happen in school hallways, and with other Unified teams.

Another skill that is being developed is leadership, she said, by partnering students to do things they might never do alone, such as reading aloud to others. It helps them “to start thinking about other ways to do things,” she said.

Unified Sports through Special Olympics is worldwide, yet Charlotte is one of only three Unified Champion Schools in our coverage that sponsors such events. 

The Charlotte game this year was played between team visits to play at the Breslin Center and Little Caesars Arena with other Unified teams.